Wednesday, July 08, 2009

I wasn't going to post today, because--well, I just wasn't. Then I read this by MaggieDammit and she voiced so much of what I'm feeling about ByJane and MidLifeBloggers. I offer it to you just to let you know where my mind is--sorta--and that I don't know if I'm done here forever.

So whaddaI think? I think I feel stupid cross-posting on ByJane and MidLifeBloggers. It seems excessively self-referential (does that mean what I mean it to mean, that it's all about me-me-me?). Last year I was doing the 365 thing, so posting on whatever BS flickered through my mind was okay. Interestingly (is that a word?), I realized that my cards and my name tag for BlogHer09 don't refer to ByJane at all. So maybe I'll just come back here for the other BS flickers. Ya think?

Thanks for sharing Maggie's post. She expressed many of the roller-coaster emotions I've endured as a longtime newspaper columnist -- and more recently and intensely, as a blogger.

Like many people, I began blogging because it was another outlet for my writing beyond print journalism. But after a while it became less about the writing. Keeping up with several blogs a day, in addition to managing my own, became so overwhelming that I've decided to slowly unplug, too. Now my life feels more real and sane and satisfying. Like it used to.

I wasn't even half as involved with blogging as Maggie is/was. But I DID find my 3-dimensional life was hurt by how much time I spent online.

There's WAY too much out there to read in the Blogosphere, and online, generally. Nobody can possibly keep up with it all. While much of it is darned-good writing, too many people are blogging about the same things, and after a while, well, it just gets old. I know I have to discipline myself and make choices, but I can't help it if my eyes suddenly glaze over after a few minutes of checking comments, etc.

Now that I am an empty nester with no kids to keep me glued to the house, I don't spend as much time online. I've started going back to the library and the bookstores, rekindling my neglected passion for memoirs and novels. I will continue to check blogs I enjoy, including yours, when time allows. But I really need to get outside, have a life, and I suspect that's what Maggie has discovered too. Nobody wants to live inside a computer monitor.